Spectacular view for such an easy hike. Nice big old growth Ponderosa Pines. Couple inches of snow on the top and rhime a couple inches thick covering everything. Despite the recent storm activity I had clear views from Broken top all the way to Mount Adams peeking over the clouds int he distance. It doesn't hurt to summit at sunset either....amazing.

I live in Sisters, so I've been up and down who knows how many times. But my favorite was a spur of the moment decision with a friend. We devised our plan and within an hour had parked our car and started up at about midnight. For a good portion, we ran up, and because the trail starts to high up we made it to the top in no time. I just brought my sleeping bag which I kept on my back with a runner of webbing around my shoulders like a chest harness. We slept some, and then got up at dawn to admire the mountains, then headed back down because we both had to work early.

I summited starting a long approach form the west because of deep snow, and eventually connecting in with the cimbers trail. The weather was snowing, high winds at summit, and a record storm moving into area. There was approximately two feet of snow. Trip was 11.80 miles long, and took 5.25 hours round trip.

This was the only mountain that was totally visible in the clouds so I decided to climb it. The Central Cascades were being hit by a storm. I still had a good view though. There is a fire lookout and other buildings on the summit.

Found a tick on my leg, first one I have picked up since I was a little kid ages ago. Other than that I made sure to feed the gluttonous chipmunks at top and play in the 10 foot wide snowpatch that remained on the north side of the mountain. Could make out Adams today, first time I have been able to see it from Central Oregon. Took my ex-fiancees girls along for the hike, they have been dying to hike Black Crater, but this had to do for today.

08/06/06
Hiked up in the evening to see if Black Crater Forest Fire was still visible. Could only see smoke plumes, looked like the fire is largely out.

A great family climb for Memorial Day Weekend...a little chilly at the top, when the sky turned grey and the wind started blowing. Snow in patches with pieces of ice falling off of the lookout. Fun to finally get to the top of that "big hill" we always pass on our way home from Central Oregon!

I thought I was just going on a 2 hour hike to the summit, but when I got to the road that leads to the trail head it was coverd in snow. I decided to hike along the road which started out with light snow, but eventually i was sinking knee deep. After the 5 mile hike to the trail head i was running out of time and decided to just head strait up the mountain to the summit. This proved to be a long bush wack through deep powder (up to my waist in some spots), and to top it off i was wearing dress pants and fishing boots. When i finally summited it started to snow. I would recommend summiting when there is less snow.

an easy hike took us longer to get there than it took to hike. we could see all the way to adams when we were up there. There was more than a hundered people on the mountain that day but most cleared oof by the late afternoon.